Adios Profe

In my last blog I mentioned how we were on our way to the dedication for the house we had been building in Palima (I recently found out this is a more accurate name for the town I had previously been calling Comalapa). This was an absolutely awesome experience. It was beautiful to see all the people who had been a part of building the house come together and give the house to the family. The family had just recently had twin babies, and already had 2 little boys. They were packed in a house with their extended family, after they lost their house to an earthquake, so this house was a huge blessing to them. We were able to pray over the house and pray over the family and give the family some words of encouragement. We ended with all sharing a huge meal together to celebrate. We had a stew with a meat which I am still not exactly sure what it was. The top suspects for this mystery meat are really poor quality beef, or potentially dog. Our ministry host jokingly said it was dog, but I’m not 100 percent confident they were joking. We also had Horchata to drink which was absolutely delicious. This was a beautiful moment that I will remember for a long time.

Now that we are finished with the house we have been doing other types of ministry in Palima. We delivered stoves to different families in the town. We had to carry all the parts of the stove up some pretty steep hills to get them the parts. I finally realized what the purpose of the man hike during training camp was, as this instantly gave me flashbacks to carrying giant logs through the woods of Gainesville, GA. In one of the houses we delivered a stove to, I saw a lady grab a chicken by the leg with a machete in the other hand, and was wondering what that was all about. We ended up coming to the same house for lunch that day and had chicken for lunch. I think I know what she was doing with that chicken now. Besides that we have done house visits in the community and even got to attend a birthday party at the field in the town. All the kids were gathered for games and treats for the fiesta.

I’ve been having a ton of fun doing ministry in San Lorenzo lately. I’ve been doing mainly tutoring the past couple weeks due to an ankle sprain I got playing soccer during ministry. At first I was bummed because I was really enjoying soccer ministry and beginning to develop some relationships w some of the kids. I have absolutely loved doing tutoring however. It’s a lot of fun hanging out with the little kids, doing crafts, and teaching them English. I’ve been able to develop good relationships with some of the little kids as well like Chito, Dylan, Alex, and Joshua. The best part of the day is at the end of tutoring getting bombarded by all the kids with hugs as they yell “Adios Profe!” Besides tutoring we have continued to do our normal house visits, which I’ve really grown to love a lot lately. It’s awesome to be able to give the families a word and to hear some more of their stories. We have also done things like give a stove cart and other supplies to a family to start a tortilla selling business.

My favorite thing I’ve done in San Lorenzo so far is get my hair cut by one of the kids we work with. One of the kids who is part of the soccer ministry is an aspiring barber. I found this out and was in desperate need of a haircut, so I decided I’d let him cut my hair. I was a little worried to let this 13 year old Guatemalan with very little haircutting experience cut my hair. He ended up doing a great job and I was really impressed with the cut. The best part was that the haircut was absolutely free. I did end up tipping the guy, but this was the best free haircut I’ve ever seen. It was really cool to be able to see one of the kids we work with every day pursue his passion.

I had my favorite day of activation ministry recently. We had a teaching on prophecy and were supposed to go out in the community and evangelize to people, and give a word to people if we had one. Two men were highlighted to me so Nick, Anna, who is AIM Guatemala staff, and I approached them. We talked to them for a good bit and heard some of their stories and current situation. Both men were currently without jobs and trying to find a way to get by and make money for their families. One of the men had to leave so we were left just talking to this man named Manuel. We had found out he hadn’t eaten in a couple days, was a week late on rent with no money, and he also didn’t have a Bible. He was telling us he really wanted a Bible and was quoting scripture saying “Man shall not live off bread alone.” We saw his hunger for the Word and told him we would buy him a Bible. We ended up walking around the town for like 30 minutes going into at least 10 different stores to try and find this man a Bible. We could not find a Bible anywhere, me and Nick even tried going to a Mormon church to try and see if they had a Bible we could give them, but they only had the Book of Mormon. Eventually we found a store that sold Bibles and bought him one. This man was so excited to now have the word, he said to us “Now I finally have something to fill me up.” It was beautiful to see how much he hungered for the Word, even when he didn’t have any food. We ended up giving him money for food and paid for his rent, but seeing how content he was just with the Word of God was super encouraging.

Please be praying for my squads health. We have had mono going around as well as some other sicknesses. We’ve also had some injuries including my ankle sprain. Please pray for radical healing and the Lord’s protection. Please also pray that I can steward the rest of my time in Guatemala well. We only have a little over one more week of ministry left, so I really want to be intentional about the time we do have left. Thank you guys so much for all your support and prayers. I could not be here with out your support and am very grateful. May the Lord bless you all!

Here are some pictures of some other cool stuff that has been happening in Guatemala. And also a link to my teammates vlog will be attached at the bottom. Check it out if you want some more content of my life.

My teammate, Nick’s, vlog: https://youtu.be/9W-uHyNyll8?si=gGqOjWDY1f4bJgJ0